


Ar Lan y Môr

by PhoenixFalls



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, POV Female Character, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sibeal lost her father to the ocean when she was eight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ar Lan y Môr

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightningwaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/gifts).



Mother always had a weakness for travellers.

Drustan and Breidaia’s fathers were men from the old lines, chosen with an eye to politics – their alliances strengthened the ties of loyalty within the Cullach Gorym and between the Cullach Gorym and the Eidlach Òr. But once her duty to clan was done, Mother chose travellers for herself, men who wandered the world Mother could only dream of, confined as she was by love and duty to spending most of her days within the walls of Bryn Gorrydum.

Sibeal’s father was one of the fisherfolk of the western shore, one of those weathered and salt-cured men with a perpetual squint from looking out over the sun-bright sea, who treated their boats like mother, lover, and daughter all in one. He died when Sibeal was eight, when a gale rose up out of the ocean without warning, sweeping away half the fleet from his small town at once.

And Moiread’s father was a bard, a man who wiled away the long winters in noble homes across Alba, spinning songs and tales by the hearth light, but who took to the _taisgaidh_ roads every summer, singing for any caravan or campsite he passed. He was more than a decade younger than mother and delighted, when his travels brought him back to Bryn Gorrydum, in taking Moiread walking with him for a day or two.

* * *

As they grew, though they were all close in age, they went their separate ways – Drustan spent more and more of his time with the Cruarch, learning to be both warrior and statesman despite his game leg; Breidaia spent more and more time with Mother, learning the peculiar diplomacy that would be necessary for the mother of Drustan’s heir, all the while meeting the men who wished to give her that heir; and Sibeal and Moiread were left somewhat at loose ends.

They learned to fight, of course, to hunt from horseback and on foot, and to use their knives to both dress their game and defend themselves at close quarters. They sat at Mother’s knee, learning to tell true dreams from false, and learning too how to interpret those true dreams. And they met men as well, men who wanted to give them sons, for though the Cruarch’s heir was usually the eldest son of his eldest sister, that was tradition and not law. But more than Drustan and Breidaia they had time to themselves, and in that time the wanderlust in their blood won out.

When they were young still, they wandered together, exploring the city, the lands just outside it, and the bit of the beach within walking distance, the north end of the bay. But as they became women, the separate calls of their heritages grew too strong, and Moiread spent more and more time in the wooded lands while Sibeal spent more and more time on the shore.

Sibeal found the woods exhausting, noisy and too close, all her senses uncomfortably dazzled. Moiread adored its busy-ness, the scent of herbs and flowers, the call of birds and the buzz of insects, the riot of green and brown and grey foliage shot through with the sudden red or purple of blossoms. When Moiread could not be in the woods, she gave her love to the bustle of the city, and the city loved her back.

Moiread found the shore depressing, the flat sand and endless blue horizon too severe. Sibeal loved its subtlety, the minute changes in color that indicated different ocean depths, the sharp smell of salt and half-decayed fish, the monotonous lapping of the surf on the sand only occasionally pierced by the cry of a gull. When Sibeal could not get down to the shore she gave her love to the highest parts of the castle, wandering along the stone parapets and conversing with the occasional man on guard. Those men came to love her, but the city at large did not, for she was all but invisible to it.

But for all they went their separate ways during the day, they always came together at bedtime. Moiread would perch on Sibeal’s bed and repeat to Sibeal the stories she had heard, from the thrush or from the baker, and Sibeal would show Moiread her haul of treasures, shells and stones and feathers and the occasional wreath she wove from sea wrack, smelling of brine.

* * *

When first they met the waking dreamer, the beautiful half-D’Angeline Hyacinthe, Sibeal knew that he and Moiread would love each other. At their core, they both were made for delight, reveling in being at the center of a crowd, collecting the hearts of those around them effortlessly, yet always careful not to damage them. Sibeal rejoiced for her sister.

And then Sibeal mourned for her sister, and mourned for Hyacinthe too, and for all those Albans and Dalriadans lost to the shared dream of Necthana’s daughters, of a united Alba and Terre d’Ange, when Drustan returned from Terre d’Ange with tales of their valor and sacrifice.

It was a long winter, huddled in the castle at Bryn Gorrydum, the halls echoing with the absence of so many kinfolk lost across the strait. When Sibeal walked along the parapet during those dark months, she bundled in her heaviest cloak and carried a flash of Dalriadan _uisghe_ with her, to offer to the watchmen.

One grey afternoon a few weeks past the winter solstice, after her work for the day was done, Sibeal found herself in Moiread’s bedroom. Mother had told them to leave it as it was for now – there was no shortage of space after all. Sibeal ran her fingertips over the remnants of Moiread’s life, her sewing basket filled with half-finished projects, a collection of feathers intended to fletch arrows. The last wreath Sibeal had made Moiread, just days before Maelcon murdered their uncle, lay across the chair in the corner. It was long dried, brown and no longer smelling of the sea, but it was one Sibeal had found plenty of sea grass for, so the braid was still tight.

Sibeal’s throat was tight too, and she turned her back on the wreath quickly. The long winter night stretched in front of her, and Sibeal suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of heading down to the Great Hall for supper, where there would be both too many people and too few. So she lay down gently on top of Moiread’s summer quilt and let herself drift into sleep, ignoring the wetness at the corners of her eyes.

Sibeal knew at once that she was in a true dream. Everything was just a little blurred, the edges soft and glowing slightly, but the images felt weighty. Sibeal was standing in an open-air temple at some great height, staring out from between marble columns at the wind-tossed ocean. Far, far below there were people moving on the beach, so small that they might have been mistaken for insects.

A noise came from behind her, a man’s voice choking out “Moiread.” She turned, and came face to face with shocked, dark eyes.

Sibeal opened her own mouth to greet Hyacinthe with the gravity due his new station, but before she could do more than draw in a breath she was waking up again in Moiread’s room.

* * *

After that, Sibeal dreamed of Hyacinthe once a season, no more, no less. Over time, she learned to keep herself in the dream for longer; over time, he learned to anchor her there with a combination of what his Master was teaching him of magic and what his mother had taught him of the dromonde. Every time they met in dreams he was quieter, more withdrawn. His eyes lost their spark of laughter.

And Sibeal, deep in her heart, was so terribly glad. Because the laughing, delighted boy she had first met belonged to Moiread; this man, with the weathered and salt-cured face and the perpetual squint that did nothing to disguise his fathomless eyes, this man was hers the way the boy never could have been. When she wandered the shoreline or the parapet now she always turned to the southwest, unerringly orienting herself to him. She waited, and hoped.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is the title of a beautiful Welsh folksong (in English, [Beside the Sea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar_Lan_Y_Mor)). You can hear a version of the song for a vocalist accompanied by a harp here.
> 
> Why choose a Welsh folksong, you ask? Because even though Sibeal spends her life on ~~England~~ Alba's eastern and southern shores, in this story her father was from the part of the island we know as Wales. I would've put that in the story, if I could have figured out what Jacqueline Carey called the region. Plus, see above, the song's just really pretty. :)
> 
> Alas, I was only able to quickly skim _Kushiel's Dart_ and _Kushiel's Avatar_ for my world-building, so I apologize if something I've said was contradicted in the later novels. There are probably also a fair number of anachronisms -- I am not a historian, unfortunately, and did not have time to research the period- and culture-appropriate terminology for some of the little details.


End file.
